Coming Back For More

I am getting ready to teach place value for the seventh year in a row. But I am totally not bored. In fact, I am pumped that I’ve been able to collect better and better ideas for teaching the topic as time has gone on. It makes me proud. It makes me feel like a professional. And it makes me want to keep teaching.

For example, I used to give my students digit cards to do place value games. They were just cards with single digits. They worked. My students learned.

But…

…it is just as easy and MUCH more meaningful to use value cards.  They are cards with multiples of ones, tens and hundreds that can be stacked to make multi-digit numbers. With value cards, students have to think about a digit’s value as they are building numbers like 395 or 1,026. They are learning the purpose of place value while developing the understanding needed to write numbers in expanded form. 

I don’t remember who shared the idea of digit cards with me, but I am grateful. The idea didn’t just help my students. It got me excited to keep learning and growing as a teacher.

And now I’m attaching my digit card templates for someone else out there. Simply print them out so that the different place values are different colors, and go. I hope they get you excited to teach place value one more time.

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